The five-cylinder’s song is that of love. Pushed to high volume, a four sounds gritty and thrashy, a six snarly and raspy. Pleasantries in their own right, of course, but not the inline-five’s brassy, thick curdle of discordant harmonies, those deep thrums and shrill highs made possible by sparking combustion every 144 degrees of crankshaft rotation. With the exception of the all-new 2018 Audi TT RS and RS3, however, this is a sound that’s growing rarer. Corporate accounting says this engine shouldn’t exist, yet Audi’s turbocharged five is alive and very well.
We’ve already driven the TT RS and the RS3 in Europe. This was our first sampling of U.S.-spec models in Connecticut, where we visited a certain 1.5-mile track nestled in the Litchfield County hills. Lime Rock Park truly feels like a park. Neither grandstands nor brightly painted curbing distract from the woodsy setting, which has barely changed since it opened in 1957. And it’s fast as hell. Adding to our throwback experience was this writer’s 1998 Volvo S70, its 2.4-liter naturally aspirated five-cylinder humming and proudly overtaking newer cars on the way up. All the other journalists flew in helicopters from Manhattan.
With the Volvo as a baseline, its meager 168 horsepower straining through four gears, the 400-hp, all-wheel drive RS3 feels like a low-gravity chamber. The 2.5-liter turbo five is what you think it is: a mighty, soul-rectifying powerplant that, in shove and sonic fury, is two-thirds of the R8’s 5.2-liter V-10. Compared with the RS Q3‘s older iron block, the five in the RS3 and TT RS pack an aluminum block and head, higher boost pressure, port and direct injection, and 57 fewer pounds.
Acceleration is fierce and turbo lag imperceptible, the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic cracking off shifts and holding gears down hills and around bends with Porsche-like intuition. On the track—driving cars equipped with a fixed suspension in place of the standard magnetic dampers, and with a Dynamic Plus package that staggers the front tires 0.8 inch wider than the rears—the RS3 rotates eagerly. It’s an easy little car to toss and place with precision, although, unlike Audi’s pricier RS models, the lack of a torque-vectoring rear differential means understeer creeps in the harder you push. This mannerism is all but unnoticeable on the back roads surrounding Lime Rock, where the RS3 gushes with flat, predictable confidence and a firm brake pedal. None of the RS3 or TT RS models we drove had the optional front carbon-ceramic rotors. They all, of course, had the obnoxiously loud sport exhaust, which would be the first thing we’d check on the order sheet.
But for all the RS3’s goodness and four-door practicality, the TT RS is a superior track tool. That’s to be expected with its five-inch-shorter wheelbase, 11.3-inch-shorter length, and estimated 287 fewer pounds (3306 in total). Through Lime Rock’s alternate Uphill section—a hard right at 35 mph, then full throttle up two steep ess bends—the TT RS is more neutral in these sharp transitions, where the RS3 can fall out of line. It’s also easier to fall out of the RS3’s manual seats, which don’t offer adjustable side bolstering (yet another reason why Le Mans legend Hans Stuck took us for hot laps only in the coupe).
In the TT RS, we found ourselves tailgating the lead instructor’s R8 more than a few times. It’s the better car to place, hold, and feel as its limit approaches, despite sharing the RS3’s rear differential and its numb steering feel. At low speeds, the TT RS behaves like an RS3 with massive blind spots. The same sublime balance and quick (but not incarcerating) acceleration are always at hand. We also appreciated the finer ambience inside the TT RS, from its fully driver-centric digital instrument panel to the crafty HVAC controls on the vents. Even laced with carbon fiber, the RS3’s materials feel markedly cheap and its design dated. At $65,875 to start, the TT RS costs $10,000 more than the four-door, and it feels like it’s worth every dime of that.
Some RS3 and TT RS buyers have been asking “Dude, where’s my car?” and citing rumors of port holdups and EPA certification delays. Audi told us that it had been planning to release the cars in August all along (ahem, Audi told us it would be “summer” and “early summer” when we drove these cars in Europe). Anyway, the 250 people who ordered the first RS3 launch edition—sold as a 2017 model—should see their cars in a matter of days. The rest will head out to dealers as 2018 models. Sorry, there are still no plans to import the TT RS roadster or fit a six-speed manual transmission to either car.
Audi fans should be elated that Ingolstadt, despite financial setbacks caused by the Volkswagen diesel scandal, can justify a five-cylinder engine used only in two low-sales-volume cars. Rest assured it’ll keep revving for at least the lifetime of these two models, making the sort of music that turbo fours only wish they could sing.
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